Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

I am trying to make a really special 50th birthday present for my husbands cousin, a someone with everything.... except a personalised perfume from me, an especially unknown artisan perfumer of no repute.

I have made it a few times now using my very best ingredients. These are the two I am happiest with but they are still not quite there. It is missing that 'something' light and special and I'm not sure what to use to lift it further into the top of the nose. My self created brief is this:-

'to imagine you are eating an orange in high church whilst feeling uplifted spritually'

Recipe 2 - An adaptation meant to improve the longevity, but it's taken the whole blend down and is way too heavy. I'm putting it here only to show where I was going and why it may have gone that way. It is still a nice perfume but has gone in the complete opposite direction of where I wanted to go.
4 sweet orange
4 bitter orange
1 palmarosa
1 cardomon
2 black pepper
4 cedarwood atlas
4 indian frankincense (my heavy one)
2 frankincense (the lighter one)
1 guiacwood
1 myrrh
4 ambergris
4 sandalwood spicatum
2 oakmoss

I would like the perfume to have as light a touch as Comme des garcons series 3 Incense Jaisalmer, but mine are not nearly as bright and cologny as this.

I am being very heavy handed but don't yet know how to lighten up.
Has anyone got any thoughts on this they would care to share?

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

I probably don't have enough experience to be of much help, but would orange terpenes work? It's distilled orange oil, and it smells very fresh and bright--kind of like the exact second you bite into an orange. It doesn't last long at all, but maybe it could make the top notes lighter.

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

I shall see if I can get hold of some to smell and see. Any suggestions are valuable. I'm not that experienced either when it comes to knowing what to alter something with in advance. I usually gain any end result by trial and error and none of them for anything other than my own satisfaction. It would be so nice to give her something I've made so she loves it, and not just have it put in the cupboard politely.

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

My two favorite bright notes are Rosewood and Frankincense. In my brightest formula, Frankincense takes 16% of the oils, helped by Ylang-Ylang which takes about 10% in the same formula so the overall, about 25% of the oils are bright.

Lately, I've incorporated Gin in my formulas as part of the Alcohol - I use 60% pure 95% alcohol, 10% oils and 30% Gin which is about 40% Alcohol. The Gin I use is the Bombay Sapphire which is a complex bright scent. It has some Iris notes so it's an easier way to get.

Two more bright notes I like to use in moderation are Juniper and Lime.

One more note that might be useful is wintergreen which is a minty scent that works nicely with citrus.

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

The gin shall be in my glass whilst trying those out. I shall put some Frankincense with rosewood and see what happens. Ylang may be too floral for this particular brew. Mine is a ylang extra and it is actually quite sickly sweet like a tuberose. Juniper sounds interesting as an accent, the lime may give it a greenish citrus note.

The problem with the second brew was the Indian Frankincense. It has a really fecal note and has dragged the whole blend to the heavy end. My other Frankincense is much lighter. I'm not sure the myrrh helped either, but I wanted it for the churchy feeling. It may also be dragging the mix towards heavy.

The Iris note I have is orris tincture in oil and that is a bit heavy, but very lovely as a base to root florals into. I am looking forward to using it in something but probably not this one.

I'm trying to grasp the same sort of breezy feeling in this brew as Un Jardin Sur le Nil by Hermes. This has green mango, grapefruit, calamus, lotus, sycamore and frankincense. I like the feel of this perfume and I want to get the same lightness of being but with the churchy and citrus smells. I'm aiming for more like a classic with a twist gentlemans cologne than a perfume.

It may just be that I have to use an aromachemical note. Perhaps my sole use of naturals isn't helping.

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

Hi there

Litsea Cubeba has a wonderful "sherbert lemon" zing that worked well in a perfume I made recently... Green Mandarin is very light and delicate.. Are these all too citrussy? How about trying some herbs? Lemon Myrtle or Laurel Leaf?

I think you're right, you'll struggle to replicate the perfumes you mentioned using naturals - we are often asked to try - we usually develop something that smells terrific but doesn't replicate the commercial perfumes.

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

Citrussy is good. I shall go and have a sniff at that. I don't have the others, but may have similar things.
I'm going to share my whole knowledge here for fun and to help me reach for a perfect scent for her.
These are the things she told me she wears and used to wear:-
Aqua Manda, Charlie (didn't we all?), No. 19 (but got fed up with it), YSL Opium, Cinnebar all in the 80's
Now Jo Malones/Grapefruit & Rosemary/Lime,Basil,Mandarin/Nutmeg&Ginger, Floris Limes
Comme des Garcons Incense 'Jaisalmer' and occasionally Eau D'Issey because of its clean soapiness
Fave smells, high church, coconut, rose geranium for its clean and spicy smell, orange, cinnamon, sandalwood, frankincense
Hates classic florals, jasmine, rose. Prefers mens aftershaves to complex scents.

This is telling me citrus orange/green top with a clean floral accent, incense high church middle but slightly spicy, supporting but non dominating base like gentle sandalwood with a touch of real ambergris to give longevity without heaviness. Overall clean, extremely linear, fresh. Hence my self imposed brief.

It is only the second time I have done a perfume for someone in particular and I love the challenges it presents. I can do it alone, but it's much more fun on here. My first one was for a friends wedding day and she has come back for more. I loooove perfumes.

I'm happy with suggestions of any kind. You may disagree with the way I'm going altogether. I shall try all. I often make a mix if someone has posted a recipe to see what it makes out of curiosity. I may decide to present her with a choice and she can manipulate it for herself..... but, it would be nicer to have got it right.

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

i second the aldehydes, especially c10 (the most orange smelling), and want to include c9. they do exactly what i think you are looking for, adding sparkle and lift. if you persist on all natural, you could try to find isolates (these are not synthesized but obtained (isolated) from natural sources, i understand they do exist.. but they might be hard to get, and possibly expensive. you should check with anya for this)
you only need a trace amount, i suggest using a 1% or even 0.1% dilution.

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

on a side note, i have found that adding some beta ionone to my frankincens oil works pretty well. it does mask the too strong terpenic-piney-herbal-green-apple-skin top note of the oil a bit, and it enhances the natural frankincense-as-incense odor greatly. (ionones are known for their violet odor)

i you are using the absolute or the resinoid of frankinces, this might not apply. (i haven't smelled these yet, but they are on my want list, they both smell more like the incense than the frankincense eo, the abolute is reputedly the best, but i still need to find a good supplier of this)

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

Originally Posted by gido

i second the aldehydes, especially c10 (the most orange smelling), and want to include c9. they do exactly what i think you are looking for, adding sparkle and lift. if you persist on all natural, you could try to find isolates (these are not synthesized but obtained (isolated) from natural sources, i understand they do exist.. but they might be hard to get, and possibly expensive. you should check with anya for this)
you only need a trace amount, i suggest using a 1% or even 0.1% dilution.

Yes, use very small amounts if you try aldehydes. A 1% dilution is about as strong as you need, and use just a drop or two of this 1% dilution at a time.

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

btw, when you are pre-diluting it's a good idea, when you are diluting below 10%, to add a fixative like dgp in the mix, in such a way that you still have 90% alcohol (say, 90% alcohol, 1% aldehyde, 9% dpg). when you mix pure, just dilute with dpg or a mixture with alcohol, or add a little less alcohol when done. otherwise you will enhance the alcohol content of the final product too much, and end up with a perfume with very weak basenotes. (i have learned this the hard way)

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

That is a fabulous tip. Thank you very much. I have never used non-naturals before or dpg. I need to smell it, and it needs to be wonderful before I decide. I'm just looking into where to get a very small amount of these C8, 9 and 10 aldehydes from. Unless anyone fancies a 1ml swapsie or two for something natural and lovely that I possess. I have just decanted the most lovely gentle orris tincture and have some new wonderful absolutes if that is a temptation.

I have some more brews of some of these suggestions on the go and will report back when they're cooked.

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

One thing I cannot recommend enough is to work in percentages rather than drops. It's painfully hard to tell just what is going on with drops, because in one blend, 4 drops of frankincense might be 13.5% of the blend, and in the next blend, 8 drops of frankincense might be only 8% of the blend. Thus, you really never get an understanding for how things work as a proportion of the blend, or in proportion to each other. Also, it's hard to tell just how much of your blend is basenotes or midnotes or topnotes. In other words, it is very hard to tell just what is going on. Perfumery is still exceedingly hard even when you know exactly what is going on, in terms of numbers.. why make it (exponentially) harder?

I use micropipettes down to 5ul and built an excel spreadsheet that lets me enter either a desired % of the blend and then get the number of uL I need to put in the mix to get to that percent, or I can enter the number of uL I put in the blend and get the % of the total blend that it is. With a few keystrokes I can change my blend amount from say, 500uL to 1250, and all of the amounts will instantly be recalculated.

I honestly feel that working soley in drops is a waste of time and inhibits learning immensely.

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

Very good advice, and something I hadn't felt ready to invest in, but certainly shall look into that now I've been doing it awhile. It hasn't really mattered much until now as I was just mucking about learning smells for fun and following a learning curve to see what happened when I mixed things together. It does matter now a recipe needs following and repeating (hopefully).

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

Originally Posted by mumsy

Very good advice, and something I hadn't felt ready to invest in, but certainly shall look into that now I've been doing it awhile. It hasn't really mattered much until now as I was just mucking about learning smells for fun and following a learning curve to see what happened when I mixed things together. It does matter now a recipe needs following and repeating (hopefully).

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

Bloomin 'enry.... you weren't joking.... I'd need a small mortgage....

I'm sure I shall find a way. I know you can get small glass straw-like tubes relatively cheaply. At least my blends are worked at 10% in fractionated coconut oil, so one drop will be nearer another in volume for the time being.

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

Originally Posted by mumsy

That is a fabulous tip. Thank you very much. I have never used non-naturals before or dpg. I need to smell it, and it needs to be wonderful before I decide. I'm just looking into where to get a very small amount of these C8, 9 and 10 aldehydes from. Unless anyone fancies a 1ml swapsie or two for something natural and lovely that I possess. I have just decanted the most lovely gentle orris tincture and have some new wonderful absolutes if that is a temptation.

i certainly would not mind swapping some. i can pre-dilute in dpg for you. mind you, they don't smell exactly nice by themselves, only in really small amounts as an effect, they work their magic. famous examples of aldehydes are chanel no5, no22, houbigant quelques fleurs (i have some really old pure perfume, and love it), estee lauder white linen, jean patou joy, lanvin arpege, paco rabanne calandre, van cleef and arpels first, etc.

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

I usually work my sample out using oils as all my EO's are diluted to 10% with fractionated coconut, then I move to the alcohol when I think I am somewhere with a new blend. It didn't occur to me that the smells would get muted. I've always thought perfumes were stronger in oils. It's pretty obvious now you say.

My alcohol is from the mistrani source. I'm finding with it, that the alcohol smell stays very pronounced, and that is why I use the oil when making the samples. The nose gets hit by alcohol so strongly that it doesn't initially seem like a perfume at all. The only one that has really mellowed is a tincture I made in May this year using frankincense resin tears in it.

Is six months really how long it takes to have proper mellow perfume?

Maybe I should keep a bottle of each of my EO's and abs at 10-20% in alcohol so they've had a chance to mellow before I make any perfumes up.

Every time I think I am getting somewhere, I find it becomes clear how clever the actual 'noses' are and how far there is to go before I even half know what I am doing. I suddenly find myself questioning my entire method now....

Re: Please can anyone suggest some lifting notes for a special blend?

mumsy, I use something like those less expensive fixed size micropipettes that you listed. I work with just about everything being at a 20% dilution, and I will say that the 5uL size creates a drop that is too small to fall freely from the tip of the pipette, thus requiring one to touch the tip to the side of the glass. I have 5/10/20 and a 100uL pipette and find this works well for blends in the 1ml range or so. At 1ml, 5uL is 1/200th of the blend, or 0.5%. This allows a great deal of flexibility while still keeping the sample size very small, thus allowing one to work with and extend very small quantities of expensive absolutes and such. I can stretch 1ml of an absolute (diluted to 5ml at 20%) across a hundred or more blends most of the time.

edit: the 10uL size drips freely from the tip, although this is still smaller than a the drop you'd get from the end of one of those cheap plastic pipettes! I also bought some glass capillary tubes at 1uL and 0.25uL, and use these when I need absolutely tiny quantities of some oil or another (such as cade!). They are tricky and a pain to work with though, especially with any of the thicker dilutions (vanilla, oakmoss, etc)